Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Cab Thoughts 12/21/16

A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for. -Grace Hopper, computer scientist and US Navy Rear Admiral (1906-1992)

Clinton opposes the 2010 Citizens United decision, which established the right of corporations and labor unions to participate in electioneering. In the debate, she said it "has undermined the election system in our country because of the way it permits dark, unaccountable money to come into our electoral system." But the decision does not do that. All the decision did was to prevent the government from suppressing speech about political matters. The justices noted that under the law it struck down, it would be a felony for the Sierra Club, within 60 days of a general election, to run an ad urging "the public to disapprove of a Congressman who favors logging in national forests." The court ruled that speech doesn't lose protection merely because it comes from corporations—a category that includes many advocacy groups.
Such expression would be censored if Clinton had her way. Perhaps she prefers influence peddled the old fashioned way through direct personal contact and foundations.

The death certificate for Katie May states that a blunt force injury to her neck tore an artery, which cut off the blood flow to her brain. The certificate also lists her death as “accidental,” revealing that it was caused during a “neck manipulation by chiropractor.”

Four large studies have established an association between neck manipulation and stroke in patients 45 and younger.

This is called Wallenberg's syndrome and is well known in medical literature to occur in previously healthy individuals.

In 2012, Clinton's brain scans revealed a clot had formed in the right transverse venous sinus, and she was being successfully treated with anticoagulants. A transverse sinus thrombosis is a clot arising in one of the major veins that drains the brain. It is an uncommon but serious disorder. It has been speculated that Clinton may have had a "predisposition to clot formation." (She had a deep vein thrombosis, a clot in the leg, in 1998.) Indeed, she continues on anti-coagulants. I had said earlier that she had experienced a stroke. That is technically incorrect. A stroke implies brain cell death and her physicians have said publicly that, despite the vascular injury, she suffered no cell death.

Who is.....Bob Tollison?

In 1970, Salvador Allende, an avowed Marxist, became president of Chile after being confirmed by the Chilean congress. For the next three years, the United States exerted tremendous pressure to try to destabilize and unseat the Allende government. Many felt that pressure illegal and immoral. How was it different from the more recent--and much more violent--American efforts to influence the governments of Iraq, Libya and Egypt? Or Russia's efforts in our election?

The market is a proprietary setting where individuals bear the consequences of their actions in the form of changes in their net wealth. The political setting is a non-proprietary setting where individual agents do not always feel the full benefit and cost of their decisions. Behavior will differ in the two cases, not because the objectives of behavior are different, but because constraints on behavior are different.--Tollison

A guy named Caplan has an interesting notion; he thinks that people think elections are surveys and thus not binding. He offers this as an argument, I think awkward:

With nearly half a million registered members, the American Independent Party is bigger than all of California's other minor parties combined. The ultraconservative party's platform opposes abortion rights and same sex marriage, and calls for building a fence along the entire United States border.But a Times investigation has found that a majority of its members have registered with the party in error. Nearly three in four people did not realize they had joined the party.

A recent article reported that 93% of people killed in American directed drone attacks on terrorists are innocent bystanders and that the A...

Paul Beatty won the 2016 Man Booker Prize for “The Sellout,” his satire about one man’s attempt to reinstitute slavery in modern-day Los Angeles. He is the first American to win the award.

‘No matter how bad things might be, they’d be worse if you hadn’t done what you do. Although you might not realize it, your good work at least helps to keep things from being even worse and just might, one day, be part of the impetus that makes for positive improvement.’--Clemson University (and GMU) economist Bob Tollison, who always said, "We are all part of the equilibrium."

So Trump has been castigating Hillary because she is married to Bill; now a movement has stirred to punish Ivanka's business because she is related to Donald. What reasonable and understanding people we are. In the Old Testament they believed the sins of the father were visited on the son. Maybe that old time religion is back.

Ornery: adjective: Having an unpleasant disposition: irritable, stubborn, combative, etc. Ety: An alteration of the word ordinary, from Latin ordo (order, rank). In the beginning the word ornery was just a dialect pronunciation of the word ordinary and meant the same. Over time it acquired negative senses, from commonplace to lazy to mean to cantankerous. Earliest documented use: 1692. Usage: “DI John Rebus is an ornery and often difficult detective who is frequently at odds with his young assistant and his supervisors.”Tom Budlong; Video; Library Journal (New York); Oct 15, 2016.

The math being right does not necessarily mean the description is right. Ptolemy's math was right. And Copernicus’s sun-centered model “did not work much better than those of Ptolemy; in fact, in the end, they turned out to work less well”, the Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli wrote.

This is reminiscent of Sir Francis Galton's observation of the wisdom of crowds. As Mencken summarized: The idea that a group of idiots, taken collectively, are wise.

National Intelligence Director James Clapper said it appeared that a “nonstate actor” was behind a massive cyberattack that briefly blocked access to websites including Twitter and Netflix.

In simplest form, Clinton had a private email server in violation of the law, common practice and common sense. But why? Why would Hillary Clinton have gone to such great lengths to have an impermissible private account? Why once discovered were such lengths taken — now involving people inside the Obama administration – to prevent independent investigation? Comparisons are being drawn to Watergate but the real lesson from Watergate is that any accounting in the nation of politicians' behavior is impossible without a free--and interested--press.

According to Misao Dean, Professor of English at the University of Victoria, the canoe can be a symbol of colonialism, imperialism and genocide. She also accused canoers of "cultural appropriation" because they are primarily white men and have a privileged place in society.

The latest test scores from the Nation’s Report Card show that about two-thirds of students aren’t proficient in science despite rising scores for elementary- and middle-school students.

James Cartwright—former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—could be imprisoned for lying to the FBI. The general told a federal court last week he regretted he didn’t tell the bureau the truth about conversations he’d had with reporters about a secret cyberattack disrupting Iran’s nuclear program. He could serve up five years in prison. “People who gain access to classified information after promising not to disclose it must be held accountable when they willfully violate that promise,” said U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein in a press release.
Gen. Cartwright wasn’t even the original source of the Iran leaks. The general says he confirmed details the reporters already had in an effort to prevent them from publishing information that could harm America’s national security.
That probably comes as a surprise to most aware citizens.
Though Mrs. Clinton didn’t leak to reporters, her personal server exposed national secrets to potential hackers, and she gave a number of people (including some of her attorneys) without proper clearances access to that information. When Gen. Cartwright became the subject of an investigation, he was stripped of his security clearance. That never happened to Mrs. Clinton.
If you are not Clinton, justice can be swift. (from wsj)

A survey in Latvia found that women found men more attractive when they were pudgy than lean. Latvia.